Back from Vacation and February results

Vacation was great!  Barb and I went on a cruise with Barb's sister and her husband.

Lots of markets moves occured while we away, that resulting in stop triggering in HGI, PIO, PSP, TUR, IXN, and IDX. As of this morning all the all positions sold off are down a combined 1.95% from where we sold at.

For January, we were down 4.00% for the month.  The S&P 500 beat us a again being only down 3.65%.  I had trouble getting end of the month numbers for the S&P 1200, so I am comparing against the similar MSCI All World index, which was down 4.38% for the month.

EWC Trailing stop triggered

The trailing stop on the Canadian ETF, EWC, triggered this morning at $24.6905.  This represents a loss of  -6.46% on the position.

APPL Stopped out

The trailing stop on Apple trigger this morning at $200/share.  This was a carried over position, and reflect 49.6% gain on the position.

PUW Stopped out

This morning the trailing stop was trigger on PUW, a progressive energy ETF, @ $22.85.  This represents a loss of -5.31% on the position.

EWA Stopped out

The trailing stop for the Autralian ETF, EWA, was trigger today @ $21.7705.  This represents loss of -1.87% on the position.

EWW Stopped out

The trailing stop for EWW, the Mexico ETF,  as trigger this morning resulting in an aprox. -7.5% loss on the position.

Week 3

Week 3 was a rough week for everyone.  We ended the week at -2.24% for the month, while the S&P 500 TR stands at -2.01% for the month, and S&P Global 1200 TR stands a -1.89% for the month.

We had several trailing stops trigger last week and will be looking a renewing position a lower level.

On the radar

With the trailing stop trigger on the BKF, the BRIC ETF, this morning, I will be looking either at getting back into BKF at a lower level, or creating my own mix using various country specific ETFs.

The below article has a good rundown of BRIC country specific ETFs.
http://www.etftrends.com/2009/05/ultimate-guide-bric-etfs.html

Highlites
Brazil - EWZ
Russia - RSX
India - EPI or MINDX
China - FXI



I'm also looking at adding a country like Vietnam, to go along with the Indonesia/Turkey vibe, via the VNM ETF.

Korea might also be interesting to go along with the basket of more developed country, via the EWK ETF or the MAKOX mutual fund.

SLV Stopped out

SLV trailing stop triggered @ $16.581 this morning.  This represents a loss 2.51% on the position.

BKF Stopped Out

BKF was stopped out at $43.05 this morning, representing a 4.38% loss on the position.

Another stop

PBD was stopped out today @ $15.6713.  This represent about loss of  6.15% on the position.

XME Stopped Out

XME trailing stop triggered today @ $53.42.  We made just 0.65% on the position.

GDX Stopped Out

The gold miners ETF, GDX was stop out, with a -4.33% loss on the position.  It was a small position, but it's a loss none the less.

Stopped out of FAS and Thoughts

Yesterday I got stop out of FAS for a small -2.7% loss on the position. The position only represented ~2% of the overall portfolio so the lose was small.

I should note that after being stopped out, financial stocks (which FAS tracks, with leverage) took off to close up ~5% from where I sold it.  DRAT!!

In other news, I'm think up up some exposure to two sectors, US Financials and Brazil, via the XLF and EWZ ETFs.  I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet, as I'll probably be looking for a good entry spot.

Week 2

I'm not going to go into the numbers for each individual equity this week , as it somewhat time consuming.

Sufficed to say it was a good for bonds, and thus bad for TBT (-4.03%), the inverse bond ETF.  It was also a tough week for gold miners (GDX, -4.86%) and minerals and miners generally (XME, -5.70%).  Lone bright spots were utilities (XLU, +0.52%), Private equity (PSP, +0.63%), and Indonesia (+0.45%).

What it all means is that to good team lost this week and for the month is +1.77%, below both the S&P 500 TR, at +1.95, and the global S&P 1200, at 2.22%.

We'll get 'em this week!

Quick Trade - FAS

Made a small trade today on the big down day.  Pick up a small bit of FAS, and slapped a 3% trailing stop on it.    We'll see how it works out tomorrow.

2010 - Week 1 and tightening the screws

Well, so far January of 2010 has been pretty good.  We finished last week up 3.12%, better than both tracking indexes (the S&P 500 TR was up 2.74%, while S&P Global 1200 TR was up 2.85%).

Before I go into the weekly performance break down, I'd like to mention that I plan tighten the screws a little bit. Right now I have a 12% stop loss set on those investments outside of the 401(k) funds.  I plan on migrating those to a slightly tighter 10%, with even further tightening possible.

Looking at the returns below, it was a big week for Metals and Mining, as well as for the emerging markets of Turkey and Indonesia.  Overall, everything was up and up, except for one fund XLU, which is a utility ETF.

Weekly Returns are as follows
IRAs
XME  +13.80%
SLV +9.74%
TUR +8.52%
IDX +8.18%
GDX +7.86%
PUW +7.48%
PSP +5.87%
EWA +5.29%
EWW +5.04%
PBD  +4.62%
GLD  +3.77%
PIO +3.74%
EWC +3.68%
BKF +3.66%
VTI  +2.96%
HGI  +2.79%

IXN +1.96%

TBT +1.50%
VIPSX +0.64%
AAPL +0.59%
PCY +0.51%
XLU -1.00%

401(k)s
FMCSX +5.47%
FIIAX +3.60%
PSVIX + 3.05%
FDVAX +2.97%
FDVIX +2.71%
FDGRX +2.59%
LSVAX +2.35%
FNIAX +1.74%

Preliminary 2009 Results

Though I like to go by the month end statement, I do have preliminary result for the 2009 season.  Overall we did pretty well with a 29.43% return for the year.  This was almost a full 3% better than the S&P 500 with finished the year at 26.45%.  We did lag the global benchmark, the S&P 1200, which finish at 31.69%, by more than 2%.  So some good, some bad.  Below are the "lifetime" stats.

Year                Music's          S&P 500        S&P 1200
2007               15.34%          5.49%            10.23%
2008               -45.55%        -37.88%         -40.68%
2009               29.43%         26.45%          31.69%